Now with polyphonic OWA matrix!!!
Oct. 12th, 2006 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grrgoylThis is our bird, Pepita.
She's the one with the pretty green feathers on the right.
She's an orange-winged Amazon parrot. Pepita had a pretty rough life before coming here. She grew up in the wilds of Ecuador, until she was caught and given as a gift to an American who worked there for a few months. Then after she had a bit too much whiskey at a fiesta, she was hidden in a duffel bag and smuggled across the border. The American brought her home and gave her to his mother, who was kind of sickly. She was subsequently rescued by Tery when the mother went into the hospital and left poor Pepita at Tery's hospital for almost a year. We've tried to do right by her ever since, including not permitting any more whiskey; hard liquor and exotic birds just don't mix.
I'll admit I was fairly ambivalent about Pepita joining our family. I mean, she's substantially more of a commitment with a lifespan of 80 years than our succession of ferrets that barely last 6. And of course at the beginning Pepita didn't care much for me either -- parrots tend to bond with only one person. But we've both sort of grown on each other, and now I'm forced to admit that, while she certainly isn't the cuddliest of our animals, she does have more character and is more likely to engage in a 2-way conversation (not to mention a singalong).
Do you mind? We were sharing a moment.
She is amusing most of the time. You can tell what mood she's in by the sounds she makes. One of our favorites is an unmistakable chuckling noise. This is usually in response to people laughing (either on television or live) but is also sometimes a reaction to any extremes of emotion, leading occasionally to very inappropriate chuckling. For example:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Hagrid: (anguished) Buckbeak's been sentenced to death!!!
Pepita: LOL
Or, worse still:
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Saruman: (high-pitched, strangled cry) To war!!!!
Pepita: LOLOL
I prefer to think she possesses a very black sense of humor rather than that it's completely random.
I'm telling you all this as background for my tale of trying to get new speakers. Back when we lived in a townhouse and our stereo was on the ground floor, we invested in quite an extensive system, complete with a DTS receiver and great towering speakers (plus a subwoofer the size of an ottoman). Since moving into our third floor condo, these speakers have largely been used as end tables to support lamps, for fear of raining plaster down on the head of our very quiet, very unobtrusive, very thoughtful neighbor. It seemed an awful shame, especially considering my ginormous DVD collection, that we couldn't enjoy the glories of surround sound in our new home.
I know that stereo technology has made tremendous advances since our initial purchase; bigger doesn't necessarily mean better anymore. Since I have more money than I know what to do with since changing careers, I thought it might be worth a try to switch out our gargantuan towers for more moderately-sized bookshelf speakers that we could actually use. Not to mention the fact that the average subwoofer now is closer in size to a shoebox and obviously much better suited to condo living.
I found a fellow on Craigslist selling a nice-looking pair of Advents for only $20 (more on him later). This I felt would be perfect to test my theory without too much of an investment. With an eye towards possibly selling our current set, I fired up the old DTS to make sure everything was in working order. However, it was not. The sub had power but no sound. I asked Tery to fiddle with it, since she's always been better at speaker-speak than me.
Re-enter Pepita. We had The Two Towers running while Tery messed with various settings, and the whole time Pepita was getting turned on by the music, emitting a constant but subdued stream of clicks, wolf whistles and tiny "woo's." After about 10 minutes of this, I told her, "Bird, you aren't the sixth speaker!" This led to a series of jokes about stereo systems that include birds. "Warning: Parrot not included, however, batteries not required" and "It would be easier to get the fader mix right if we could figure out how to mute the OWA (orange-winged Amazon) channel." And so on. I finally found something that Tery laughed at with me. And when we laughed, so did the bird. Good times...
But, more about Mr. Advent speakers. He emailed me with his number and I waited until noon the next day to call. It took about 5 minutes to make him understand who I was and why I was calling, at which point he grumpily said, "Yeah, I'm in a meeting, can I call you back?" Sure. But why did you answer your phone in the first place if you couldn't be interrupted, ass? That really irks me about cellphone users. My sister turns hers off when she's at work, because she's not available to talk. Dick. He finally did call back, again speaking in irritable grunts and clipped sentences. We decided on a meeting place but not a time, as he had to check his schedule. That was yesterday. No word today, which also irks me. I'm not expecting him to put his life on hold for a $20 deal, but I didn't force him to list his stuff on Craigslist. He has until the weekend to settle this before I start looking elsewhere.
But I'm still without a sub. I've scoured the internet looking at options. The problem I've noticed with reading user reviews of speakers (or I suppose anything) is that I have no idea if this person is dissatisfied because they're an audio snob with higher standards, or if that person can't stop raving because they just moved out of their parents' basement and have nothing to compare it to. Also it seems the majority of consumers are looking for components that WILL rattle windows, the exact opposite of what I need (I noted with amusement one eBay listing that actually said, "Back in the dorm I got more than one noise violation with this baby!!"). I just want something that will add a fuller sound without peeling the paint off my walls.
I thought my problems were solved in a chance conversation with my sister in Boston. She had gotten a Pioneer bookshelf system (also on Craigslist) with a sub that she never used. She offered to send it to me, but wasn't sure of the specs or even if it worked. She described it to me and it seemed to fit the bill perfectly, until she flipped it on to test it. "Hey," she said excitedly, "that sounds....nice." The more she listened, the more she fell in love. I had simultaneously opened hereyes ears to a whole new dimension in music listening, and talked my way out of a free sub. "Yeah, tell Tery I DEFINITELY think she needs to get one of these," she joked. I didn't mind. But I guess it's back to the old drawing board online surfing for me.
She's the one with the pretty green feathers on the right.
She's an orange-winged Amazon parrot. Pepita had a pretty rough life before coming here. She grew up in the wilds of Ecuador, until she was caught and given as a gift to an American who worked there for a few months. Then after she had a bit too much whiskey at a fiesta, she was hidden in a duffel bag and smuggled across the border. The American brought her home and gave her to his mother, who was kind of sickly. She was subsequently rescued by Tery when the mother went into the hospital and left poor Pepita at Tery's hospital for almost a year. We've tried to do right by her ever since, including not permitting any more whiskey; hard liquor and exotic birds just don't mix.
I'll admit I was fairly ambivalent about Pepita joining our family. I mean, she's substantially more of a commitment with a lifespan of 80 years than our succession of ferrets that barely last 6. And of course at the beginning Pepita didn't care much for me either -- parrots tend to bond with only one person. But we've both sort of grown on each other, and now I'm forced to admit that, while she certainly isn't the cuddliest of our animals, she does have more character and is more likely to engage in a 2-way conversation (not to mention a singalong).
Do you mind? We were sharing a moment.
She is amusing most of the time. You can tell what mood she's in by the sounds she makes. One of our favorites is an unmistakable chuckling noise. This is usually in response to people laughing (either on television or live) but is also sometimes a reaction to any extremes of emotion, leading occasionally to very inappropriate chuckling. For example:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Hagrid: (anguished) Buckbeak's been sentenced to death!!!
Pepita: LOL
Or, worse still:
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Saruman: (high-pitched, strangled cry) To war!!!!
Pepita: LOLOL
I prefer to think she possesses a very black sense of humor rather than that it's completely random.
I'm telling you all this as background for my tale of trying to get new speakers. Back when we lived in a townhouse and our stereo was on the ground floor, we invested in quite an extensive system, complete with a DTS receiver and great towering speakers (plus a subwoofer the size of an ottoman). Since moving into our third floor condo, these speakers have largely been used as end tables to support lamps, for fear of raining plaster down on the head of our very quiet, very unobtrusive, very thoughtful neighbor. It seemed an awful shame, especially considering my ginormous DVD collection, that we couldn't enjoy the glories of surround sound in our new home.
I know that stereo technology has made tremendous advances since our initial purchase; bigger doesn't necessarily mean better anymore. Since I have more money than I know what to do with since changing careers, I thought it might be worth a try to switch out our gargantuan towers for more moderately-sized bookshelf speakers that we could actually use. Not to mention the fact that the average subwoofer now is closer in size to a shoebox and obviously much better suited to condo living.
I found a fellow on Craigslist selling a nice-looking pair of Advents for only $20 (more on him later). This I felt would be perfect to test my theory without too much of an investment. With an eye towards possibly selling our current set, I fired up the old DTS to make sure everything was in working order. However, it was not. The sub had power but no sound. I asked Tery to fiddle with it, since she's always been better at speaker-speak than me.
Re-enter Pepita. We had The Two Towers running while Tery messed with various settings, and the whole time Pepita was getting turned on by the music, emitting a constant but subdued stream of clicks, wolf whistles and tiny "woo's." After about 10 minutes of this, I told her, "Bird, you aren't the sixth speaker!" This led to a series of jokes about stereo systems that include birds. "Warning: Parrot not included, however, batteries not required" and "It would be easier to get the fader mix right if we could figure out how to mute the OWA (orange-winged Amazon) channel." And so on. I finally found something that Tery laughed at with me. And when we laughed, so did the bird. Good times...
But, more about Mr. Advent speakers. He emailed me with his number and I waited until noon the next day to call. It took about 5 minutes to make him understand who I was and why I was calling, at which point he grumpily said, "Yeah, I'm in a meeting, can I call you back?" Sure. But why did you answer your phone in the first place if you couldn't be interrupted, ass? That really irks me about cellphone users. My sister turns hers off when she's at work, because she's not available to talk. Dick. He finally did call back, again speaking in irritable grunts and clipped sentences. We decided on a meeting place but not a time, as he had to check his schedule. That was yesterday. No word today, which also irks me. I'm not expecting him to put his life on hold for a $20 deal, but I didn't force him to list his stuff on Craigslist. He has until the weekend to settle this before I start looking elsewhere.
But I'm still without a sub. I've scoured the internet looking at options. The problem I've noticed with reading user reviews of speakers (or I suppose anything) is that I have no idea if this person is dissatisfied because they're an audio snob with higher standards, or if that person can't stop raving because they just moved out of their parents' basement and have nothing to compare it to. Also it seems the majority of consumers are looking for components that WILL rattle windows, the exact opposite of what I need (I noted with amusement one eBay listing that actually said, "Back in the dorm I got more than one noise violation with this baby!!"). I just want something that will add a fuller sound without peeling the paint off my walls.
I thought my problems were solved in a chance conversation with my sister in Boston. She had gotten a Pioneer bookshelf system (also on Craigslist) with a sub that she never used. She offered to send it to me, but wasn't sure of the specs or even if it worked. She described it to me and it seemed to fit the bill perfectly, until she flipped it on to test it. "Hey," she said excitedly, "that sounds....nice." The more she listened, the more she fell in love. I had simultaneously opened her
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